


Here am I Floating 'round my Tin Can

by TheMulletWhisperer



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I'm tired, Making David Bowie References, Panic Attacks, Zero Gravity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7224334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMulletWhisperer/pseuds/TheMulletWhisperer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pumped up and ready to head out on another operation, Shepard and Garrus board the Kodiak to their destination.</p>
<p>But then, everything goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here am I Floating 'round my Tin Can

**Author's Note:**

> I recently replayed Mass Effect and then also listened to Space Oddity and this...happened. It's something OKAY, DAD?!

Whatever she was expecting when she dragged herself out of bed, bolted her armor on and ambled down to the shuttle bay, it definitely wasn’t  _ this _ . Arming up, grabbing her Mattock and boarding the shuttle alongside the most insufferably smug and handsome Turian she knew, Jane Shepard took a seat opposite to him, if only to spite him. And spite him she did. Vakarian gave a telling flick of his mandibles--the Turian equivalent of a smirk, “Come on, Shepard, still mad at me about the fish thing?” Unfortunately, she hadn’t quite mastered the recognition of his subvocals, and didn’t quite realize that he was messing with her.

“Fish...thing?”

“Oh...you don’t know. Nevermind.”

“Garrus, what’d you do to my fish?”

“So, what’s the mission, you get a briefing from Hackett?”

“Garrus.”

“Where’s this shuttle going, then?”

Shepard gave him a glare through the glass visor of her helmet and settled back in her seat, draping one arm over the back. “We’re headed down to Noveria again, apparently Gianna needs some help with...something.” Garrus raised one of his browplates, crossing his arms in his seat, “Yeah, speaking of the mission...don’t you usually bring  _ two _ of us lowly...what is it you humans call it, surfers?”

Unable to help a little chuckle, Jane shook her head, “Serfs, Garrus.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Long story. Anyway, yeah, but Vega’s off drinking with Ash and Cortez,” she gave a pointed look to the rookie pilot in the cockpit, “Liara’s grilling Javik, and Tali’s with EDI doing something with her systems that made absolutely no sense to me. I figured since you were the only one  _ free _ …” Her tone was blatantly teasing.

“Oh, right, I’m your  _ second _ choice, huh Shepard?”

“Damn right, bud.”

“Well…” She could already see his stupid witty remark forming on his mouth plates, “I’m sure we could test th--” What was sure to be some kind of attempt at flirting was cut short by a shower of sparks from the cockpit, followed closely by a loud yell and the slamming shut of the bulkhead to the pilot’s cabin. The shuttle went through turbulence that had Shepard and Garrus both holding on to the nearest metal bits to avoid smashing into the various appliances in the shuttle.

And then everything went still. 

Shepard barely managed to get to her feet before she felt her feet lifting  _ off  _ of the ground and she began floating upwards, only peripherally catching Garrus sealing his breather helmet over his head. It only took the Commander a few seconds to realize why. She couldn’t breathe. 

Panic set in and, instead of hardsealing her helmet, Shepard began flailing wildly, trying to find something,  _ anything _ to anchor onto. The flashes started in soon after, the shuttle replaced by black space inhabited only by the planet below her. Suffocating. Gasping for air where there was none to be found as she drifted away from the wreckage of the  _ Normandy _ . No air hoses, no rebreathers, only death with no way out, no way to escape. Slow, painful death.

When her vision went black, she expected to have died, only to have it return a  moment later with a slightly orange-ish tint to it. With a hiss, she could breathe again, for which she was eternally thankful. Gulping in large quantities of air, the shuttle came back into view, as did the helmeted Turian hovering above her, holding her by the collar of her armor in one hand, and clutching her breather-less helmet in the other. It seemed that, on top of saving her from dying horribly, he also had the power to note that her green eyes shone with half realization and half terror. Without even needing to ask, he pulled her in and hugged her tightly to his chest--something aided by their zero-G environment.

From behind her rebreather, and through the thick material of his helmet, he could vaguely hear her crying, only making him hug her tighter. “Shh...it’s okay Shepard, we’re just fine. We’re still in the shuttle, Shepard.” He didn’t even need to ask what brought this episode on--he knew well enough. Usually it didn’t get this bad, the occasional nightmare where he could hear her gasping for air and clutching at her back, or the subtle distraction when they were in a zero-G atmosphere. Only once before had he seen her panic this severely, and all he knew to do was reassure her that she wasn’t dying. 

For more than a minute, Shepard cried before the tears finally tapered off and the whimpering gave way to deep, shaky breaths that fogged up her visor. Fortunately, the helmets came with a built in de-foggy button that Garrus pressed softly, so as not to move her head. Once the visor had cleared up, he could see her face clearly. While her eyes were glistening and red, she’d stopped crying and her breathing had returned to normal. Eventually, she let go of him and began to float upwards again. “Sorry, Garrus, I can’t--” He cut her off almost immediately, “Don’t, Shepard. You can’t help it.”

“But I can, I just--”

“No, you can’t. You  _ died _ , Shepard, I think that entitles you to a healthy fear of dying again.”

A moment later, she nodded and began looking around at the floating objects and the sealed bulkhead. “Alright...any idea what happened here?”

Garrus grabbed one of the handrails and looked around the cabin, shaking his head. “Uh...something broke.”

Rolling her eyes, Shepard pushed off the ceiling and latched onto one of the seats, looking for a way to open the bulkhead. “Yeah, I got that from all the floating we’re doing. You think we got out a distress signal before the systems went down?”

“Probably not...say, don’t we carry around portable distress beacons for situations just like this?”

“Yeah, maybe when we’re planetside, but who knows how far away Joker is right now.”

“More of a chance to live if we do it.”

“You make a good point. Where’d you put it?”

Garrus blinked. “Put what?”

“The beacon.”

“I thought you picked it up.”

“I told you to pick it up.”

“...we should really coordinate better.”

With a deep huff, Jane pushed off the wall and propelled herself to the other side of the shuttle. It took a couple of tugs, but she managed to pry open the storage locker and watch all its contents float out slowly into the cabin. “Right. Makes things easier. Come on, help me look.”

“Of course, because I keep backup emergency beacons on me at all times.” Garrus drawled, though he began pushing through the assorted floating  _ things _ in search of the beacon.

“What, you don’t?”

“No, of course not!”

“But you always carry around a backup hyperspanner just in case you have to calibrate a drinks machine, right?”

“...Shut up.”

“Uh-huh. Cut the chatter and help me look.”

Miraculously, there  _ was _ an emergency beacon, it just didn’t look like anything Shepard had ever  _ used _ before. It had the words ‘Emergency Beacon’ written right across the side, so what else could it be, right? 

Garrus held his hand out. “Here, let me see.”

“Why, you gonna calibrate it?”

With an indignant puff, he dropped his arm...er, let his arm float back up. “Fine, fine. You can figure it out.”

“Okay! Okay, here, here you go.” She held it out to him and he took it, running his three-fingered hand over the surface. 

“Mhmm...yeees, this is an extremely complicated mechanism. I could see why you weren’t able to figure it out. The button labeled ‘deploy’ is cunningly hidden right in plain sight on the other side of the beacon.” Although he couldn’t see her face, he was sure that Shepard was either blushing or pouting under her mask. Both were equally amusing thoughts.

“Just deploy the damn beacon.”

“My, so snappy today. I suppose I  _ did _ keep you up late last night…”

“Garrus!”

“Alright, alright!” He pressed the button on the side and the transponder lit up like a christmas tree and started making deafening pinging noises. If there were a dictionary definition of unsubtle, it was this beacon. At least it was transmitting.

 

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

 

By the time Joker had picked the shuttle up and the pilot had been carted off to the medbay, Shepard had started getting used to zero gravity. It almost felt disappointing to set her feet on solid ground. Almost. Resolving to stick around in the shuttle bay while Garrus went to vomit all over her toilet, Jane stayed behind and watched Cortez strip away the hull around the problematic systems, dissecting and repairing them.

After what seemed like a lifetime but was really probably only about three or four minutes, Steve approached her with what looked to be a charred miniature Alliance dreadnought. One that she recognized. The one that she’d  _ lost  _ when she set it down in the open panel of the Kodiak while she fought Vega. Her blush was obvious.

With a stern look and no words, Cortez held the collectable toy (she preferred to call them ‘models’) out to the Commander, who took it back in an equal silence. With an understanding between the two, forged not from words, but from looks, she shuffled out of the shuttle bay and punched the button to her cabin. At least this would make a hell of a story.


End file.
